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TY Thursday: Gratitude–It’s a Gift

June 3, 2021 by Dennis Fischman Leave a Comment

The first step your nonprofit ought to take to show your gratitude to donors is sending out the ideal thank-you letter, within forty-eight hours of receiving the donation. That will already make your donors happy.

The second step is to make a plan to thank the donors throughout the year. Beginning with a welcome packet, and continuing with reports that show the impact of their donations throughout the year, you can make donors glad they gave and eager to hear from you again.

What about sending donors a gift in return? Is it a good idea to include a premium when you ask (or to reward their donation afterward with something tangible)? Or not?

premiums express gratitude

The Gifts I Got For Giving

Judging by my mail, many nonprofits think including a good way to say thank you–sometimes, in advance–is by giving me something I can use.

I’ve received:

  • Return address labels from the Southern Poverty Law Center, Hadassah, Amnesty International, and even from AAA
  • Bumper stickers from the National LGBTQ Task Force, Keshet, and Planned Parenthood
  • A recipe for Iced Hibiscus Tea with Dark Spices from UNRWA
  • Sticky notes from Partners in Health

Women to Women International has plied me with multiple gifts: a notepad, a set of cards and envelopes, and even offered me a handmade friendship bracelet made by a woman in Rwanda (in return for a gift of $20 or more).

Women for Women premiums

It’s worth noting that I’ve only ever given to about half of these good causes! Clearly, for my wife and me, expressing gratitude through premiums is not a useful fundraising tactic.

But are we typical that way?

The Psychology of Getting Paid

There’s a famous psychology experiment in which two sets of participants are asked to do exactly the same tasks. The only difference: Group A are told they’ll be paid a small amount for doing the work. Group B are doing it for free.

After the task is done, the psychologists ask: How interesting did you find the tasks? Do you think they were useful? Would you be willing to do them again?

The answers are extremely relevant to us as fundraisers!

The paid group found the tasks less interesting and less useful than the group who did the work for free. The paid group were also less likely to want to do the work again in the future.

Why did getting paid make a difference? The psychologists believe that Group A told themselves a story about the tasks: “I’m just doing it for the money.”

Group B wasn’t getting paid, so they had to come up with a different explanation. They found something interesting and worthwhile about the tasks–because surely they wouldn’t be doing something that was boring and without purpose!

Do donors look at giving the way these participants looked at their tasks? And if so, which story do you want donors to be telling themselves about your organization?

I gave for the note cards (or bumper sticker, or bracelet). I don’t really support the organization all that much. I might not give again unless they make me a better offer. or

I gave because something about this organization moved me. They’re the kind of group I support, and so I might give again, the next time they ask.

The choice seems clear. But what do the experts say?

Do Premiums Help You Get & Keep Donors?

“Organizations believe that offering thank-you gifts increases charitable donations, but they actually reduce donation amounts,” says George Newman, assistant professor of organizational behavior at the Yale School of Management. (Therefore, Jay Love of Bloomerang recommends you spend your money on staff time to call and say thank you, instead!)

On the other hand, “Premiums can drive significant, incremental fundraising success in donor acquisition, reactivation, and retention programs,” according to Michael Kulpinsky of Innovaire Communications. “Premiums that offer strong mission-based tie-ins worked the best.”

Neesha from Causevox wants you to remember that last point. “Extrinsic fundraising gifts make people feel selfish,” she says, and you want them to feel generous. “Don’t use them as an incentive for first-time givers or to people who are not actively involved. You’ll be encouraging a bad habit.”

Instead, if you do use premiums to show gratitude to donors,  give them “goods that reflect the direct impact of your work.” Like that friendship bracelet from Women to Women I mentioned, or “a personal letter from a child who you sponsored for her education.”

My expert opinion? If you are a smaller nonprofit, there are other ways to express your attitude of gratitude that you should start doing today.

Gratitude Can Be a Gift in Itself

The message on the outside of the bold blue envelope read, “Your Certificate of Appreciation is enclosed.”

Look at what I saw when I opened the envelope.

GBFB gratitude

It’s an actual certificate, like one you might put up on your wall. It’s signed by the President of the Greater Boston Food Bank, Catherine D’Amato. It uses a photo of three smiling faces to make Rona and me feel good about what we gave.

And right under the title, it actually says, “With deep gratitude.”

Even if I don’t hang it on a wall–even if it goes into the recycling bin–this piece of paper makes a greater impression on me than all the return address labels in the world.

And it doesn’t make me feel like I got paid for giving. It makes me feel I was thanked.

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TY Thursday: Did the Donor Mean to Give to YOU?

February 4, 2021 by Dennis Fischman Leave a Comment

Does every donor who gives to your nonprofit really intend to give to you? Chances are, the answer is no!

I am not talking about the donor who meant to give to Connexion in Massachusetts and mistakenly sent a check to Connections in Texas. That kind of mistake is rare.

Nor am I talking about the person who hit Donate on your website when they didn’t mean to. On most websites, the donor has to take a few steps before giving–sometimes, too many!–and that provides them with the chance to reflect.

I’m talking about the donor who knows the gift is going to your organization but doesn’t so much care about your organization as about something that you do. And make no mistake: there are a lot of donors like that.

So, how do you thank them?

Why Donors Give When It’s Not Your Organization They Care About

They care about their friends

Have you ever seen one of your loyal supporters start a Facebook fundraiser for you? Maybe for their birthday, or some other special occasion, Kelly Padilla asks her friends to help her reach a goal of $500…to benefit you.

Let’s say Kelly reaches her goal. Great! You have a little money you didn’t have before. But what you don’t have is a whole new set of donors: because they didn’t give to support you, they gave to support Kelly.

That’s true whether Kelly raises funds for you online, runs a charity race, buys a table at your gala, or even holds a house party. It’s true whether the gift is for her birthday, in honor of her retirement, or in memory of her mother who passed away recently.

The people who donate to these kinds of fundraising campaigns give because of their relationship with her, not their relationship with you.

They care about a program and the people it serves

There are lots of occasions when a donor gives because they like a particular program of yours but wouldn’t have been moved to give to the others.

This happens often in crises. After the earthquake in Haiti in 2010, for instance, I gave to an international NGO for Haiti relief. When they stopped letting me designate my gift for Haiti, I stopped giving to them. The others may have been worthy, but they were not what I meant to support.

Even on an everyday basis, donors may like one part of what you do more than others. I know it hurts to realize that. You have no black sheep in your nonprofit family. They’re all your babies! But a donor has a different relationship to them.

  • When I worked at an anti-poverty program, some donors cared about preventing evictions and homelessness. Others loved seeing pre-school children in Head Start.
  • An agency that supports survivors of domestic violence may have to talk about women survivors in most of its appeals, because its longtime donors identify with women. They may have to send segmented appeals to get support for male and non-binary survivors.
  • My dad spent the last 48 hours of his life in hospice care, and I used to give to the hospice agency. When it was swallowed up a county-wide hospital network, and that network assumed I would just switch my giving to them, I directed my donations somewhere else. I have heard stories like this from other donors!
  • If your agency does policy advocacy, a small number of donors will care about that intensely, and a larger number will want their money to go toward helping individuals and families.
“When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.”
― Dom Helder Camara

Your donors may not call you saints or communists, but they know whether they want to give food to the poor or challenge the system that creates poverty. It’s one of those goals that they care about: not your whole organization.

They care about a program you sponsor

Recently, I receive a wonderful thank-you in the mail. It included a personal note from the Development Director; her business card; and a brochure, a newsletter, and an annual report, all beautifully illustrated with photos in color.

The puzzling thing? I didn’t remember giving to the organization!

It turned out that I had given to a couple of smaller groups of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women who relied on this umbrella organization for fiscal sponsorship. The name of the larger organization showed up on my credit card statement. It did not stick in my memory.

Because it was the women I cared about–not their fiscal sponsor.

How Do You Thank Donors Like These?

It’s a really good idea to thank every donor, even if in some cases you are unlikely to hear from them again. We know statistically, for instance, that people who give in memory of a friend’s mother who died this year are unlikely to give again next year. And few of the people who gave to support Kelly’s birthday fundraiser will become repeat donors, when you ask.

So, what can you do to give your nonprofit the best chance of building relationships with donors who might not care about your whole organization?

  1. Thank the fundraisers. Make sure that Kelly feels like a hero.
  2. Save the date. Can you remind yourself to ask Kelly to do the same next year? Or to ask people who gave in memory of her mom to give in her memory on the anniversary of her death the following year?
  3. Ask what interests the donor. When you call and thank them, ask what moved them to give. Or create a follow-up email and ask that question. It may be an issue at large or a specific program at your agency. You need to know.
  4. Record the information in a searchable database. If you can’t query your CRM and find out all the people who gave because of a particular issue, get a new database!
  5. Make sure the donor feels seen. Send them articles, stories, photos, quotes, appeal letters, and thank-you letters that let them know that you know why they give.

Because if they don’t mean to give to your organization yet, treat them right, and maybe you will earn their loyalty.

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TY Thursday: Your Donors Need to Hear “Thanks” Right Now

October 22, 2020 by Dennis Fischman Leave a Comment

It’s always a good time to say thank you to your donors. Right now, in Fall 2020, it’s the best time. Because your donors need to hear from you.

Why Donors are Worried

worriedConsider how much uncertainty we are all confronting in Fall 2020.

  • We are still facing a worldwide pandemic that has killed over 200,000 people in the U.S.–and the numbers continue to rise.
  • Flu season is upon us, too, and while the vast majority of us get our shots, the few who don’t are a danger to themselves and all of us.
  • We may see another major shutdown of businesses and public facilities.
  • Millions of people are out of work. The first stimulus package helped many of them, but not all and not enough…and we will not know about a second stimulus until after the election. Possibly after the Inauguration in 2021.
  • The world is holding its breath for the results of the election, but we don’t and can’t know ahead of time how long it will take for those results to be official and what legal or extralegal challenges they will face.

In times like these–I’m not going to say “unprecedented” because that has become a cliche–donors are worried.

People who give money like to feel they are (more cliches coming here) changing the world, making a difference, having an impact. Right now, it’s hard to feel any of those things, and easy to feel out of control.

Why Your Donors Need to Hear “Thank You”

By thanking your donors, you help restore their sense of control.

By telling them stories about people they helped, you bring it down to a human level.

By making them the hero of the story, you make them feel powerful, instead of powerless; caring, instead of careless. You make them feel good to other people–-and you make them feel good about themselves.

Thanking donors gives them the best gift they could ask for, and it makes them want to keep on giving back. Share on X

So, throughout October, on Giving Tuesday, on Thanksgiving, and any chance you get, make sure to thank your donors. You will feel better about yourself when you do! And you will build loyalty among your donors that will last beyond 2020.

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